Solved Realtek AC97 audio driver (not HD driver)

[hgfire]

After installing W8 on a Toshiba satellite laptop, all went well except Realtek AC97 won't install. Re-installing the driver didn't work. Windows reveals a code 10 and mentions the driver did not install correctly. Naturally there are no sound devices present with this occurrence. Plugging in an external USB sound device (creative sound blaster) works perfectly, just not as convenient as having the internal Realtek AC97 sound device working. BTW, this is not an HD sound driver, it's the regular Realtek driver. Tried a driver download from three additional sources w/o success.

 

[hgfire]

Compatibility mode did the trick.

 

[Hopachi]

Interesting...
It's good to know compatibility mode works for drivers. When I faced this issue I simply copied the driver from an virtualized windows xp that used the same driver and I applied it to windows 8. It was reported as unsigned but lucky for me that it's on 32bit and it was allowed to install.

 

[hgfire]

Glad it worked for you as well

Glad it worked for you. Yes, I also have W8 installed on a 32 bit machine. I had this laptop lying around and thought it might be good to test the beta on.

I must admit, so far I see no compelling reason to jump to W8. W7 works fine and even if W8 is released next year; from a consumer point of view, I can't see moving to another OS version so soon. Heck, I still have XP as a virtual machine running on a desktop.

 

[noone]

How did you do_ I-ve done like you said, in compatibility mode for realtek AC'97, and it doesn-t work! How did you ...

 

[GMan]

Install using the device manager. It went on well like that for me.

 

[hgfire]

I'll throw a monkey wrench into this mix now 04/02/2012. Each time MS would provide updates, it would negate my efforts of having a working driver and I'd have to re-install. Now since the last update (guessing this was a week or so ago) it either left my driver alone or updated it because there were no ill effects to the working audio driver what-so-ever. I have no idea what MS included in the last update and to be honest, I didn't even bother to investigate.

 

[GMan]

MS has issues with Realtek AC '97 and Realtek 100 mbps lan drivers. After you install the latest ever made for these from 2009, Windows Update has "updates" that install early 2008 versions.

So, install the latest from Realtek's site, then do a manual Windows Update. When it shows the updates to Realtek, right click on them and hide them. You'll never see or deal with them again and all will be well from there on.

 

[hgfire]

Thanks Gman

MS has issues with Realtek AC '97 and Realtek 100 mbps lan drivers. After you install the latest ever made for these from 2009, Windows Update has "updates" that install early 2008 versions.

So, install the latest from Realtek's site, then do a manual Windows Update. When it shows the updates to Realtek, right click on them and hide them. You'll never see or deal with them again and all will be well from there on.

Sounds good to me Gman. Thanks for your timely input and expertise.

 

[easyq]

Having similar problems, windows 8 installed a ton of updates and suddenly i had no sound anymore. It tell me there are no speakers attached while they are still there and no i did not reconnect them.
Stept taken so far:
reinstalled drivers with compatibility for windows 7 - no result
set the main .exe file to compatibility windows 7 - no result
uninstalled all audio drtivers and rebooted hoping windows would reinstall proper drivers - no result
checked in the BIOS and changed the HD output to AC97 - no result
now downloading Realtek AC97 drivers hoping this would fix - result to be updated EDIT No result either

 

[erpster4]

Having similar problems, windows 8 installed a ton of updates and suddenly i had no sound anymore. It tell me there are no speakers attached while they are still there and no i did not reconnect them.
Stept taken so far:
reinstalled drivers with compatibility for windows 7 - no result
set the main .exe file to compatibility windows 7 - no result
uninstalled all audio drtivers and rebooted hoping windows would reinstall proper drivers - no result
checked in the BIOS and changed the HD output to AC97 - no result
now downloading Realtek AC97 drivers hoping this would fix - result to be updated EDIT No result either

sorry to revive this old thread BUT your ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard does NOT use Realtek HD Audio, easyq. According to the specs on the ASUS web site, it uses VT1708S 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC (as in VIA VT708S from VIA Technologies Inc). In other words, you installed the wrong driver. You should install the VIA audio driver, not the Realtek audio driver for your board.